One Small Box

I don't know exactly what I expected to find when I started chasing after my great grandfather, but it wasn't this.

Okay, that's not quite true - I did expect a few things. Fairly unrealistic things, now that I think about it. I was caught up in what I thought was a bit of a mystery - and mysteries always get my imagination going. I had started with one piece of information: the name of the facility where my great-grandpa George died

I was hot on the trail.

As it happened, there is a facility with that name right where I live (what luck). All the documentation I needed practically fell into my lap. All I needed to do was write a letter and ask them to send me everything they had on my great grandfather. This was going to be a fairly straightforward case.

So be it. If the hunt was to be easy - there was still the anticipation of what I would discover - what they would send me.

Here's how I pictured it:

I would wait a few days, then weeks, and then about the time I'd forgotten about ever making the request, it would arrive.

In my imagination, it would be a small, well-worn box. It would have a few dusty photographs of people I'd never met, maybe a book or two written in Russian, and (best of all) official documentation of my great-grandfather's confinement. There would be a certain amount of finality to it, but with enough leads to take me to new mysteries - if I was interested.

That's what I expected, but then - Hollywood has really done a number on my generation.

What I did get was a letter. In it was the request and supporting documentation I'd sent them - they were sending it back. They'd attached a cover sheet with four lines of text on it. Each line was next to a check box.

One of these boxes was checked. It said:

Our files have been carefully checked and we are unable to determine that the patient was ever seen at [our facility]

So much for imagination, so much for easy.

So much for round one. Round two is in the mail, and I've queued up round three. Mysteries be damned, I just hate to lose.

I'm still on the trail.

< Previous

Accent on the 'We'

Okay, Great Grandpa George is gonna have to wait.

I'm gonna let go with some sh!t.

---

And I want to start this off by saying that my current job is - by far - the best job I have ever had.  Challenging work, a noble cause, outstanding UX support, and free coffee.

I'd also like to say I've been there long enough to say this isn't a case of being in love with the honeymoon. 

I work on a team stocked with rockstars. These are people worth going to the mat for. 

My UX role is backed up by management. I own the problem, study it, design a solution - and then my devs build it.

Note the curious absence of corporate bullsh!t

As I said, It's a killer UX job.

But I am now going to hurl a co-worker under the bus.

...because they so effing deserve it.

---

Back when I interviewed for this job, the only sub-awesome bit was the UX guy. A veteran designer, but clearly somebody who thought an awful lot of themselves.

This post is about them. 

Let's call them Noddy.

Over two months ago, the UX director called us into a room and asked each of us to take one of the many projects on Product's to-do list. Immediately after doing this, they informed me that I would be working on a report with a funny name. 

The UX director has a way of doing this. I think it's their way of cutting the crap. 

Fair enough. At the time, it's not like I would have known enough to make an informed choice - so they chose for me. 

UXDir then drove the point home by asking "What do you know about [A Report With A Funny Name]?"

Having decided to be honest at this job, I said, "If I think about it awhile, I might be able to spell it. ARWAFN."

UXDir grinned. 

Okay, we're all friends here.

The rest of the UX team got their marching orders. Noddy got a pair of reports, Sprint and WatchMeType already had serious project work - which they kept, and Runner got the dashboard that held all the reports.

Work these problems.

So, off we went. And I spent a pornographic amount of time learning about Arwafn. What it is, what it does, why people use it, how people use it.

In all former lives, this luxury of time was unheard of. You need to be done two weeks ago. Go.

At Nerdhaven, so long as the devs had stuff do, you could take the time you needed to solve your problem.

Awesome!

We all plunged into our assignments and started ramping up.

In the meantime, Noddy was still keeping our devs busy by giving them features and fixes so they had stuff to do - AND they had to work their reports. 

Sprint and the Professor kept their devs working on their project work.

All was well.

I started writing up things for our devs to do, a lot of Arwafn was stuff people had been asking for for ages, so writing requirements for it was a lot like transcribing our customer's broken dreams.

For the love of God, give us an Arwafn that works!

Doesn't take a genius to write specs for that feature.

1) Make an Arwafn report that works.  

2) Also, make it not suck.

I write these up - give it to the devs, aaaaand - they pause.

They hem. They haw. 

The existing Arwafn is not in our code base. 

Ramping up for my Arwafn work will take time. They will do it, but all my work is the same to them: Stuff they cannot start now.

The Devs are hungry for work, and my stuff doesn't help them. Runner's still ramping up to make stuff, Noddy's stuff is all they have.

And... Noddy's stuff is pretty thin gruel. 

I mean, we work in two week sprints, so you don't give a dev a slab of work that takes more than fourteen days. But still... 

Noddy writes up stuff like "add a value to a dropdown menu," or "change this text label." These are things that need to be done, but if I was writing up the work, I'd do a bunch in an afternoon and move on to real work.

I'm sure the devs think of them the same way. Developing even simple things takes longer than you'd think - particularly if you do it well, and our Devs are awesome.  So, I can't help but think they are uninspired by the work they are getting.

But Noddy's the only one giving them stuff they can do, and they're on two other projects. Runner and I need to step up.

Runner connects with our Subject Matter Experts, and starts getting a list of things that need to get better in report-land. This is something I'm bad at as a noob. I have all kinds of research materials at my disposal, my first inclination is to use them - not schedule a conference call.

Runner does the right thing - they get the SME's on the phone and Noddy shows us the ropes on Nerdhaven's version of virtual meetings.

Aside: Virtual meetings suuuuuuuuuck.

But Noddy shows us how to record our sessions so we don't miss stuff, and facilitates the introductions to the SMEs and generally gets us rolling. I spend the entire call waiting for someone to talk about Arwafn, and I don't think anyone did. 

Afterwords, Runner reviews the recording and writes up a summary/partial transcript with timestamps. At the time we're both looking for guidance for what we should be doing and Runner's wondering if they're wasting their time with the transcript. They send it to me and Noddy for review and I forward my edits. 

Noddy never forwards any edits. To Noddy, this is a waste of time.

I believe this is not a waste of time.

We had a session full of good info, but all of it was stored in our fragmented memories - and a video recording. 

Months from now, when someone asks what we came up with in the meeting, we'll all have forgotten the call and we'll be left with the video. 

A two hour video.

PRO TIP: You cannot skim video.

If we wanted to know what was in that file, it would take 2 hours. And if we didn't write anything down when we watched it, we'd have the same problem a month later.

This, I learned, from Sensei. 

Sensei wrote up notes on some conference calls that saved me a ton of time. A summary I can skim and learn "This two hour video is all about reports." If I want more, I can read in detail, or (last resort) watch the video.

Moral: Write the damn notes. If you never find a use for them, someone will.

Also: Thanks, Sensei.

Anyway, our Devs are starving for work. Our team lead, BigDog, is trying to be patient, but wants us to give his devs work.

Soon.

I write up more stuff for Arwafn. Because it's what I've been told to do. The other UX folks are going to land stuff soon, and after those are done - the devs can take my stuff.

Noddy lands a few more appetizers, but nothing resembling real work. The devs sigh, but when all you have is fritos, you eat the fritos.

Fast forward a sprint. 

We're reviewing work for the devs and I proudly call up my specs for more Arwafn stuff. BigDog is straining to be nice, but they can't eat Arwafn yet.  I've got a seven course meal of inedible.

I feel like I've let the BigDog down. I go to UXDir and ask if there are things I can give our devs to work on that they can do right now. They aren't on our goal list, but there are literally a *ton* of things we could improve in our UI.

UXDir is polite, but firm. "No."

Noddy is no help. This time around, they don't even have appetizers.

What we end up with is pretty much a typo correction: Remove Reports 1 & 2.

Dead simple features. Not even features, really. Delete some things. Whoo...

Dev's gotta eat...

So, we're deleting Reports 1 & 2.  Maybe a hour of code time for each. Twice that to make sure nothing else got broken in the process.

But it's a joke of an iteration. Devs are meeting to figure out how to spool up for Arwafn work and a bunch of other things we have in the pipeline - but when we show our clients what we've been doing lately, we should expect a yawn.

At Nerdhaven, we do Agile - and Agile means you stand in front of your work and show your clients what you've been up to. When you land big slabs of awesome, you and your team look awesome.

When you take a bow in front of a heap of nothing - you and your team look stupid.

Agile is about forcing that realization upon people and using it as motivation.

We don't want to look stupid, ergo, we will get our sh!t together.

---

Yesterday, we took our bow in front of nothing. Noddy was the MC, and tried to put the best spin on it they could. "We'll have you out of here in two minutes, end to end."

Noddy shows the clients that - in the past two weeks - a room of highly-paid professionals has succeeded in deleting two reports.

And then things go wrong. And not in the way you'd think they would. Our SMEs are on the conference call asking why in the hell we've deleted Reports 1 & 2. 

Noddy's ready with the pat answer, "Reports 1 & 2 have been replaced by newer reports and are no longer needed."

I vaguely remember this, and something about having never removed the old reports. We were just fixing this. Why was this a question?

I'm almost relieved no one is giving us the business about the scant offerings, but the SMEs aren't done.

"Reports 1 & 2 have functionality that do not exist in the newer reports. Why did you get rid of them?"

Noddy mentions the earlier meeting with the SMEs about reports. "We'd agreed we could get rid of these reports. But if you need them back, we can certainly roll back the changes."

QA weighs in - Reports 1 & 2 have some benchmarks that are unique. 

This is news to Noddy. 

This is news to me - I paid no attention to these stories. I'm the Arwafn guy. I know nothing about Reports 1 & 2.

All three UXers in the room look dumbfounded. 

In front of the clients.

Awesome.

Noddy assures everyone that the SMEs had agreed to this change, but we can revisit the decision.

We end the meeting promising to follow up with the SMEs.

Back in the room. BigDog has had it. He gives Noddy an earful "I can accept that the reports need to come back, I can accept that we made a mistake. What I can't accept is that we're at showcase and DON'T KNOW WHY WE DID THIS WORK?"

There is no argument. BigDog is completely right. We work up ways to check on this sort of thing. The SMEs have changed their minds since we talked - and now they want their report back. We should be ready to confront them with evidence of their reversal. We should not sit silent while they ask why we did what they asked.

Product shows up and catches the tail end of BigDog's rant. Product is clearly displeased that the SMEs are pointing us in different directions.

Product is clear: Sort this out.

Later that day. Runner and I are hashing out what happened. Runner points out that removing Reports 1 & 2 was their feature, but Noddy pushed it to the devs. Runner is just sick that people think they pushed bad work.

Runner had some doubts about it, but Noddy said it was ready. So it went. 

It was a simple task: Remove Reports 1 & 2. Not like there was a lot to review.

But Runner's pointing out there was a whole meeting about those reports. And it was recorded. And Runner transcribed it. 

The SMEs asking questions today has Runner remembering that we were  supposed to migrate stuff out of Reports 1 & 2 before we blew them away. 

Runner's worried. BigDog is pissed - and BigDog knows this feature was written by Runner. And we all should have caught this, but Noddy shouldn't have given Runner's story to the devs. 

I tell Runner I'll talk to BigDog. If this story comes from Runner, it's going to sound like Runner's shirking blame. Runner's not like that, but they don't want soak up all the fail on this.

I talk to BigDog and lay it out. This is a UX fail, not a dev fail - but Noddy moved somebody else's work without knowing it was ready. We should have stopped them, but no way this is Runner's thing.

BigDog nods like I'm telling him something he already knows.

---

Today.

I'm rolling in around noon - little e was sick - and I meet Noddy in the hall.

They're like "That call with the SME's on the reports, that was recorded?" Or words to that effect. I was out of it. But it was odd that they were asking about this, first thing, in the hall.

I'm like, "Yeah. We recorded it."

Noddy starts talking about it being a two hour recording, and grumbling about how hard it would be to listen to the whole thing. They said something like they'd started to, but it was just too much of a pain...

I kill that noise.

"You could just read the transcript." I am so glad I talked with Runner yesterday.  "Runner wrote the whole thing up and sent it around for edits, remember?" I bet you don't.

Noddy leaves and I hit my desk.

BigDog is on me soon as I get my coat off. He wants to know the details on the Report discussion we had with the SMEs.

This is a thing.

I find the transcript, CTRL-F for the report names.

It is dead obvious that the SMEs are right. The transcript has them asking us to move the features out of Reports 1 & 2 and afterwards we can delete them.

Five seconds to the answer.

I spend five minutes scrubbing to the matching part of the video file to listen and make certain.

Noddy told them they'd agreed to remove the Reports. 

He was mistaken, or he lied.

I give the information to BigDog who begins digging into it immediately.

The day is a blur of catching up from missing the morning, but finally we arrive at the moment that made me write this.

I'm talking to BigDog after a long meeting with Runner. Noddy's talking to one of the SMEs on the phone.

He's saying "Well, we had a new BA."

I'm like: No way I heard that right. 

BigDog and I are cross talking about something funny. BigDog is either hilarious or fascinating on pretty much any subject he wants to be.

I'm trying to keep up with him, but I keep hearing Noddy's cross talk.

Noddy is blaming Runner.

I sit straight up and look right at Noddy, but it has no effect. Noddy wraps it up and before I can think to say anything, BigDog is all over Noddy.

"I heard you talking to the SME, and you said some things that were not true."

BigDog's been tracking the conversation longer than I have and he's going after what Noddy told the SMEs in our showcase.

Noddy starts out with his "its in a two hour recording-"

BigDog takes him out at the knees. "I've read the transcript. I listened to the 20 minutes where you were discussing these reports."

Noddy keeps weaving, shifts to saying it was Runner's story.

BigDog calls up the audit trail. "You pushed it to 'ready for dev.' There's your name, right there." 

And finally, Noddy shifts to the position he should have started with - shared blame. 

"We missed it."

Which is just another floor down in Noddy's house of bullsh!t, but closer to a professional truth. UX gave Dev specs that should not have been coded. 

At this point, I should pile on with BigDog, stick a fork in Noddy. 

But I don't.

BigDog did the right thing, the hard thing. He stuck it to Noddy over the BS line to the SMEs.

About pretending it was all on Runner.

I did the easy thing. Said something magnanimous about making sure any new features pushed to dev have been agreed on by UX. But that's shit. Noddy was part of a mistake the team had to eat. Instead of owning up to that, he tried to lie his way out of it, then blame it on Runner.

He's a weasel.

And there was a right thing to say right then and I didn't.

---

Which is why I'm writing this post. This post is my promise into the void that I will not let this slide. 

Noddy and I are going to discuss this - and I am going to say what's on my mind.

My team is a good one and they deserve better. 

From Noddy - and from me.

A Letter For George

I wrote this story about ten years ago.
At the time, it was a curiosity - a mystery, even. I've said before, I'm stubborn.
But I think this story has me beat.

Apologies to those who've heard this chapter before, but this time around - there will be new chapters.

For most of my family, the story began with an envelope that arrived sometime before 1965.

---

It was an unremarkable envelope, and it arrived at my grandparent's home while my grandfather George was away. It was addressed to him, but it was my grandmother who opened it. There was a Lancaster postmark, and the return address was from a hospital she'd never heard of.

Within moments of reading it, my grandmother was in hysterics.

The letter was from a physician. He seemed to be asking for permission to amputate George’s leg. This was necessary, the doctor explained, because George was not fit to make such decisions on his own.

Her husband worked on a train - had there been an accident? She frantically called coworkers and friends. No, they assured her, there had been no accident on the train. Even if there were - they certainly wouldn't notify the family by mail. George should be home on schedule, and everything should sort itself out.

Which left my grandmother at home staring at the clock and wondering; Why was it addressed to George? Was this all a mistake?

George did arrive on schedule, unharmed. When his wife confronted him with the letter, his response was indirect: “My God, he's still alive."

Who?

"My father."

And that was all he'd say. The letter's existence was only enough to pry out the necessary detail that George and his father shared a first name. After that, all questions were met with a gruff, "leave it alone."

The letter vanished, presumably signed and returned. Somewhere in Lancaster, a man no one knew lost his leg. There would be one more letter, years later. Grandpa George would read that one in private.

---

In all the memories of my grandfather, I can remember only one utterance about his father. "He said he was from Georgia. White Russia." He had said it like he was unsure -and wished he wasn't. I never asked him why he hadn't just asked his dad to be certain, it just didn't occur to me.

A lot never occurred to me back then. I also never wondered about why I had a grandfather with a surname shared by none of my great-grandparents. I was a kid, and had no interest in old people with funny names.

---

My early memories of Grandpa George were simple.

He was a mountain of a man with a booming voice. He was the kind of person who would do anything for you if he liked you, but he gave off vibes that told you not to ask for much. Truth was, I was afraid of him for a long time.

He was a history buff. He loved hearing a good story as much as telling one - so long as it was true. He had no use for fiction. Grandpa had an elephantine memory for battles and their generals, and he could put you right in the middle of whatever battle he was describing.

He loved firearms, and had a gun collection that was modest in size, but had no peer when it came to maintenance. Nobody had cleaner guns than Grandpa George. He'd take one out for just a minute, then clean it for ten before putting it back. We used to joke that grandpa liked cleaning guns more than shooting them.

I spent a lot of time watching grandpa clean his guns. That, and listening to everything grandpa knew about gun safety - grandpa was nuts about gun safety.

He was of course, much more than that. But I was a kid with simple questions and simple views. By the time my questions actually meant something, the time to ask them had passed.

---

Over time, I learned little else about my Great-grandfather. Mostly from how people said something about him, rather than what words they'd chosen. "Oh, yeah..." they'd say, "he left when grandpa was young."

It was in college that my curiosity finally connected the dots on why my great-grandmother didn’t share Grandpa George’s last name; she'd remarried. A fact that everyone knew, but one that somehow managed to elude me for more than two decades. Of course she'd remarried, her husband had left her. 

Asked and answered.

---

Not too long ago, some other peoples' memories finally came bubbling to the surface. They were from George's sister Francie, by way of my mother. Before she died, Francie had told my mother a little about George Sr.

"Our father had a terrible temper," she'd told my mother, "just terrible."

It seems that George Sr. also had a modest collection of guns, and also kept them in near-immaculate condition. One day when my grandfather was around ten years old, he took one of his father's guns without permission and went shooting out in the woods. Once he was done, he snuck it back into his father's gun case and never said a word.

Of course, he'd put them back dirty.

It's easy to imagine what happened next. The father comes home and notices that someone has been using his guns. He confronts his son, who - being a kid - denies everything. Then he shows George Jr. the proof: dirt and residue on rifles that are always clean.

Then, according to Francie, George Sr. proceeded to beat his son.

Francie was a kind soul, so she called it a beating. But beating is far too small a word for what my great-grandfather did to his son that night.

I should point out that unless some ancient police report surfaces, there is no way to know what occurred with any certainty. All who were there are now dead. However, the two facts I have pretty much tell the story.

After that night - my great-grandmother gathered her children and left her husband forever. Because of what he did, my great-grandfather was put into a state mental hospital, where he spent the rest of his life.

It was this hospital that sent my grandfather the letter all those years later.

---

One other memory from my childhood comes back to me now. There was a time when my grandfather kept a pistol in his nightstand. Being a kid, it took no time at all for me to find it, and only one or two days for me to build up the nerve to actually pick it up.

It was, oddly enough, at a time when my parents and uncles were in the next room. I had figured they were too busy to worry about me, and anyway - I wanted to pick up the pistol.

It was a Browning 9mm, your classic movie pistol, and it was impressive. Aping what I had seen on TV, I gripped it and pulled the slide back-

-and watched a live round slide halfway out of the side of the gun, jamming it open.

I was dead. I knew it, I was too terrified to let the slide go back, because any slip could make the gun go off. Even if I managed to clear the jam, I'd have to take a bullet out of the gun and grandpa would know.

Kid logic exhausted, I gave up. I set down the pistol and went to my grandpa and told him to follow me.

As I entered his room with him behind me, I could just see it coming. I'd let him down. Everything he'd shown me, everything he taught me, I'd blown it, and he was going to hit the roof. He'd start with, "NEVER pick up a gun without an adult!!" and then my parents and everyone would come in and join in, and my life would be over.

But he didn't.

He cleared the jam, put the pistol away, and said "Forget about it. I've forgotten about it already." Then he pushed me out of the room. I couldn't believe it. He didn't punish me, he didn't even yell.

He got rid of the pistol after that, but he never brought that day up again - or told anyone about it - and I never understood.

I think I do now.

...